Telephone menu systems or interactive voice response (IVR) systems are commonplace, yet tend to be widely disliked. In the routine operation of a telephone menu system, a user attempting to obtain a service is lead by instruction prompts to push telephone buttons or speak words to select among choices. Depending on the state of this instruction-response navigation process, the next state to be selected might represent the next menu of choices, an actual service, or a form-filling dialog directed at obtaining a service.
Telephone menu systems do not meet at least one essential requirement for good user interfaces. They do not offer techniques by which an experienced or expert user can perform the task with less effort than a novice. That is, the interface is aimed at the first time user and not the repeat user.